You don’t need much more than three sisters, a kitchen, and some outlandish actions (such as making a pitcher of lemonade immediately after shooting your husband) to populate a good ol’ Southern Gothic tragicomedy. Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes of the Heart is being given a new production, presented by The College at Brockport Department of Theatre and Music Studies, opening on Friday, February 28, at 7:30 p.m., in the Tower Fine Arts Center Mainstage Theatre, 180 Holley Street, Brockport.
Contrasting the kookiness are the truly heart-wrenching backstories Henley gave to her trio of siblings, which help audiences fall in love with the Magrath sisters of Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Michael Krickmire, a faculty member in the department, and director of the production, feels that “Henley makes sure that the audience is treated to moments of ‘sibling dynamics’ that are hilarious, yet ultimately honest and familiar to many.”
The sisters face troubles and tribulations – which are presented riotously – including the jail time served by one of them for that bullet sunk into her husband (who survives), and potential spinsterhood. Being Southern women of a certain era, there are societal expectations foisted upon them – almost suffocating in their propriety – which the sisters rise up to rally against, including those imposed by their very proper and very Southern – but tyrannical – grandfather, who lays dying in a hospital as the play begins.
Performances will take place on February 28, 29, March 5, 6, and 7, at 7:30 p.m. There is also a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 1, which will be ASL interpreted. Tickets are $17 general, $12 for seniors, alumni, faculty and staff, and $9 for students. They are available at fineartstix.brockport.edu, by phone at 395-2787, or at the Tower box office.
More information about the Fine Arts Series at The College at Brockport can be found at www.brockport.edu/academics/fine_arts or on Facebook.
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